


When We Had Nothing

by KChan88



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 02:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1533521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KChan88/pseuds/KChan88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After three months on the road looking for Bucky, Sam lays down the law. They’re going home for a few days to regroup and rest. But when Steve opens his apartment door, the very person he’s spent all this time looking for is sitting on his couch. Set in the MCU, with small mentions of Brubaker’s run of Captain America.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When We Had Nothing

After three months on the road, Sam lays down the law.

“We’re going home,” he says, firm, but nonetheless gentle.

Steve opens his mouth to argue, but even he cannot argue with the exhaustion in his bones, the weeks of sleepless nights in hotel rooms and constantly running around, desperate to find Bucky, even a trace of him, a clue, anything.

“Sam…”

“Don’t ‘Sam’ me, you’re exhausted, and if you’re exhausted I should probably be dead,” he says. “Just for a few nights. Sleep in our own marshmallow beds, regroup. Plan. Then we’ll go right back out again.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” Steve says, an echo of his previous words, but there’s less certainty in them, because he knows that he needs Sam with him, knows he needs a friend even if sometimes he struggles to say so out loud. He doesn’t like to bleed on people, but sometimes he knows he needs to. Knows he encourages others to do just that very thing with him if they need it.

“I know,” Sam says, lips quirking up briefly in a smile. He puts one hand on Steve’s shoulder; in the past three months they’ve developed the easy tactile intimacy of old friends, and not for the first time, Steve thanks God for Sam Wilson. He interacts and talks with Sam the way he would have with any of the Howling Commandos, and best of all, Sam lives in the same city. Steve hardly knew he’d needed a friend like that, but suddenly with the appearance of Sam, he felt a little less lonely, and it made sense. He’d always put so much stock in friends.

“You might be a super soldier,” Sam continues. “You might be Captain America the World’s First Superhero, and you might not need as much rest as the average person even if you need twice the food, but you aren’t Super Human, Steve. You gotta rest your heart sometimes, my man.”

Sam doesn’t say “you aren’t so great at taking care of yourself sometimes, and your oldest, closest friend, a guy who was like your brother that you thought was dead was mind wiped and tortured and turned into an assassin for your enemy and was specifically sent out to kill you because he didn’t even know you so maybe you should take a break” but Steve understands his meaning.

“You’re right,” Steve says softly, making eye contact with his friend and nodding.

“I know,” Sam repeats, smirking.

They’re back in DC in two days, and as the plane lands, Steve checks his phone, seeing text messages from Tony, Bruce, and Natasha.

_You doing okay, Cap?_ Natasha’s message asks. She hasn’t stayed in one place long since the demise of Shield, and everything is still a massive mess, but she checks in with him about once a week. Checks in on their hunt for Bucky. Checks in on him. Always throws in a quick reminder to ask Sharon Carter out when he finally comes home for good.  He smiles as he responds, because he’s found an unexpected friend in her, and he’s so glad of it. Something tells him she about the Winter Soldier than she lets on, but he imagines he’ll find out if she does in time, as is everything with Natasha Romanoff.

_I’m okay Nat,_ he replies. _Gonna take a break for a few days. Sam’s orders._

_Just checking in, Cap_. Tony’s message says. _In case you forgot, the Avengers have your back. I have your back._

Tony had shown up at the hospital after Bucky pulled Steve out of the Potomac, thanked him for “you know, not letting those crazy Hydra helicarriers blow me up,” called him an idiot for nearly dying, then sat in the chair typing away on his laptop for a few hours, trading banter with a tired Steve every once in a while, and looking concerned whenever he thought Steve didn’t notice. In light of Tony’s recent experiences with Extremis and the collapse of Shield, Steve was sure that whatever Tony was working on, it would be groundbreaking. Important. Tony’s work was remarkable on normal days, but in times of duress it seemed to grow exponentially. He was a genius, that was for certain, a genius who would make a difference.

_I haven’t forgotten, don’t worry_ , Steve types back _. Going home for a couple of days. No luck yet.  Thanks, Tony._

He opens the third message from Bruce.

_Hope everything’s okay Steve. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.  I’m pretty sure Tony is trying to make some kind of “Cap and Falcon” locator so we can keep up with where you are, but he hasn’t had much luck yet. I dunno if you WANT him to have luck with that._

At that, Steve can’t help but laugh, and shows the message to Sam.

_Thanks Bruce, he says. Will do._

It’s funny, Steve thinks. With Tony and Nat and Clint it’s almost always “Cap” and with Sam or Bruce it’s almost always “Steve.” Thor tends to use the full “Captain.” He knows the other Avengers have his back, and he surely counts them as friends, but they are spread all over, and Steve grew so used to having those he cared about very close by, so it’s the kind of friendships he must adjust to.

Sam sees him home, and tells him he’ll call in the morning so they can regroup. Steve thinks he should probably be more aware, more paranoid given the current state of things, but he shuffles his feet as he walks into his apartment, super soldier body more tired than he’s felt in a long time. When he flicks on the light and sees someone sitting on the couch, his breath seems to stop.

Bucky.

The figure is wearing a black baseball cap, long brown hair sticking out, metal arm covered by a jacket, but the light glints off the silver fingers. Bucky looks up at him, unshaven and gaunter than before, but there is a flicker of something in his eyes, different from the faraway look he’d seen before. His eyes are haunted, but there’s life there too, the tiniest spark of it. Steve runs his eyes up and down Bucky in a split second, noting that there is a gun strapped to Bucky’s ankle, but he suspects it’s not meant to harm, but is more, perhaps, for Bucky’s own protection, because what if what’s left of Hydra still hunts him, desperate to destroy their best kept secret?

“Bucky.” Steve finally says, closing the door behind him.

Bucky looks at him, and for all that Steve wants to rush to his best friend and hug him until it hurts, he stays where he is, but Buck doesn’t look much different than a frightened animal.

“Steve,” Bucky says, an air of a question in his voice.

Steve nods, cautious.

“Steve Rogers.”

Another nod.

“Captain America.”

“Yes,” Steve says, fingers flexing against his urge to rush to Bucky.

“And I am James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky.”

“Yes,” Steve says again. “That’s your name.”

To his immense surprise, in a sudden flash, it’s Bucky who rises from the couch and approaches him. He’s inches away, eyes locked onto Steve’s but he can’t quite finish the movement. So Steve does it for him, stepping forward and pulling Bucky to him, arms tight around Bucky’s shoulders as Bucky’s tentatively go around his waist, quiet, broken sobs ripped through with fear of being reprimanded bursting out into Steve’s chest. And as Bucky slides to the ground, so does Steve, never letting go.

“I could kill you right now,” Bucky whispers. “I was supposed to kill you. That was my mission.”

“Do you want to kill me?” Steve asks.

“No,” Bucky replies, hands fisting into Steve’s shirt. “You’re the only thing I know. The only thing besides my missions. Besides killing. Besides Pierce.”

“Pierce is dead,” Steve tells him.

Bucky shudders, the man he is and the Winter Soldier they created battling inside him.

“You were smaller once, weren’t you?” Bucky asks, pulling back but not letting go. “And then you were bigger. You rescued me, and you were bigger.”

“Yes,” Steve says again. “And you rescued me a fair few times.”

“Because you were too dumb to run away from a fight.”

There’s a whisper of a smile on Bucky’s face, shades of a whispy memory flitting across his expression, and it cracks Steve’s heart. He navigates them toward the couch, and Bucky removes his hat, twisting it in his hands.

“I went to the Smithsonian,” he tells Steve. “I saw the exhibit, saw the name you said was mine. Saw my face. But I only remember pieces, mostly pieces with you. All intermixed with…” he stops. “They called me The Asset. But you called me Bucky Barnes. James Buchanan Barnes. Both seemed so real to me, but when you said my name on the helicarrier, I saw color. When they spoke to me it was only gray.”

“Do you remember?” Steve asks.

“Bits and pieces,” Bucky answers, voice hoarser than Steve remembers, and Steve remembers it like it was yesterday, because though decades have passed, for Steve, it’s only been something roughly like two years since he came out of the ice, since he’s been without his best friend. “I’m not from this time, I know that. Somehow I’ve always known that, because even when they wiped my mind, when they woke me up for missions, the world was different every time. At first they didn’t even put me in cryo, but then I think maybe I started to remember and that’s when they started to put me to sleep between missions. I know Russian now. But we... we grew up in Brooklyn, didn’t we?”

“We did,” Steve says. “Poor kids, but we knew how to have fun.”

Steve wants to tell him stories, wants to paint every memory of Bucky’s life across his brain, of their friendship, of Bucky’s little sister, of everything, but he also doesn’t want to overwhelm him, so he keeps listening.

“We went to war together,” Bucky says, almost monotone, unable to look at Steve now, clearly embarrassed by his earlier outburst. “You led us. Captain America. The Howling Commandos. I fell from a train.” The words come out like the fragments of memory in Bucky’s brain, strained and jagged.

Steve reaches out, stilling Bucky’s hands, which seems about to twist his hat in half.

“And I saw...you flew a plane into the water to save Hydra from blowing up New York. You were asleep in the ice for decades.”

“That’s true, too,” Steve says. “They just got me out a couple of years ago.”

“And then you helped the...the Avengers save the world again,” Bucky says, a hint of pride in his voice. “You’re such a noble ass, Steve. Wouldn’t run away form a fight with goddamn aliens.”

Steve laughs a little, because that sounds just like Bucky, but after a moment Bucky’s face falls, eyes flitting down to his metal arm.

“How can you trust me?” Bucky asks, suddenly ripping his hands away. “I was supposed to kill you. It’s what I do.”

“No,” Steve says, firm. “You don’t do those things. The Winter Soldier does those things.”

“I am him!” Bucky shouts, backing away from Steve, inching away into the corner of the sofa. “The blood on my hands, you don’t understand.”

Steve pauses, hesitating before diving back in.

“You’re right,” he says. “I don’t understand everything you’ve been through. I only know what I saw in the file. I haven’t been in your situation, but I do understand that those crimes were committed by the mind wiped machine of a man they created. They were not committed by Bucky Barnes. They were not committed by you, only by your body. Bucky, you didn’t even know me, how could you have known what you were doing? Hydra killed those people through your body that they stole and the mind they locked away.”

There’s another bitten back sob from Bucky, but as his friend looks back up at him, Steve sees him there, the man he’s always known, with just a flash of a smirk, a teasing glint in his eyes.

“You’re such a stubborn punk,” he says. “Captain America or no.” But even as he speaks, Bucky reaches over and grasps Steve’s hand very lightly, still afraid, but still trying. “Always believing in the best of people.”

“Jerk,” Steve mutters, and a small chuckle escapes Bucky. It’s a cracked sort of sound because the likelihood of Bucky laughing much since the 1940s is pretty slim, but it sets Steve a little more at ease.

“We should get you cleaned up,” Steve says, but his eyes flicker down to the weapon strapped to Bucky’s ankle, a look Bucky doesn’t miss.

“Don’t trust me?” Bucky asks, a little bitter. “I don’t blame you.”

“I don’t worry about you hurting me,” Steve says. “I just…” His meaning is clear even if he doesn’t finish his sentence.

Slowly, Bucky reaches down and releases the weapon, handing it over to Steve, who raises an eyebrow. Bucky sighs and hands over the knife strapped to his belt.

“That’s it,” he says, throwing his hands up in the air. “I got rid of the rest of it. I couldn’t walk around DC with ten weapons, now could I?”

“You…” Steve stutters. “You’ve been in DC this whole TIME?”

“I wasn’t ready for you to find me,” Bucky replies. “I was trying to keep tabs on you but you kept flitting all over the damn place.”

“Let’s just get you cleaned up,” Steve says, shaking his head with a smile, showing Bucky the way to the bathroom. “Sit,” he directs, pointing at the toilet lid.

“Aye, aye Captain,” Bucky says with a mock salute. “Are you a nurse now or something?”

“Ha ha,” Steve says, falling back into the easy banter he always shared with Bucky for as long as it’s possible right now. “Keep your sass to yourself. You used to patch me up when we were kids. Consider it returning the favor.”

Steve wets a cloth, making for the dirt on Bucky’s face, ceasing movement immediately when Bucky automatically flinches at Steve’s hand near his cheek, eyes clenched shut.

“Buck…”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Steve says, very soft. “No, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

“I know,” Bucky replies, but he still keeps his eyes closed, and Steve can only imagine how many times he’s been hit, how many times Hydra caused him pain.

Steve wipes away the dirt, runs a comb through Bucky’s knotted hair, puts some Neosporin on the cuts on Bucky’s hands, all in silence, but as the minutes pass he feels a little bit of the tension leave Bucky’s shoulders, his breathing growing a little easier.

“Let me go grab you some night clothes,” Steve says. “Just a second.”

Steve rifles through his drawers for about a minute before he finds the softest flannel pants and t-shirt he owns, bringing them back to Bucky, startled when he sees tears pooling in Bucky’s eyes. This is how it will be for a long while, he imagines, one minute good the next one not as Bucky struggles to fight the battle within himself, the battle Hydra created when they put Bucky to sleep and created their weapon. A flash of fury rushes through Steve, and he wants to find every single Hydra agent and take them down.

“I hurt you,” Bucky says, voice trembling. “I don’t deserve any of this.”

“Buck you didn’t know me,” Steve insists, still gentle.

“I started to,” Bucky says. “On the bridge, when you said my name, I knew there was something. Then on the helicarrier it was starting to come back to me but I thought I was crazy, and you made me so angry because it hurt to even _think_ about remembering, let alone remembering itself...I could have killed you. You were going to let me kill you.”

“But you saved me,” Steve says, squatting down in front of Bucky and handing him the pajamas. “You pulled me out of the Potomac. You remembered enough to do that, something in you fought everything they did to you and saved my life.”

“I always just wanted to protect you,” Bucky says, putting his head in his hands. “From the bullies you tried to take down without even blinking when they were two times your size at least. Even when you were bigger and Captain America and saving the world and didn’t need it anymore. And now all I can think about is how I almost killed you. You always looked up to me, but you always made me want to be better.”

“I’m here,” Steve says, taking both of Bucky’s hands in his. “And I’m not going anywhere, because as you said I’m a stubborn punk. Till the end of the line, Buck.”

That draws a watery smile from Bucky, who then accepts the pajamas and promises to meet Steve in the living room.

A few minutes later Steve’s laid out all the couch cushions on the floor, complete with blankets and pillows, and when Bucky comes out, he stops dead. He tilts his head, staring at the couch cushions, obviously trying to remember their significance.

“Like when we were kids,” he finally says after about a solid minute.

“I’m not shining your shoes though,” Steve says.

“Nah,” Bucky says, raising an eyebrow. “You can shine my arm instead.”

Steve snorts with laughter, an old habit from childhood Bucky always used to tease him about.

“I don’t have a guest room,” Steve says. “But this couch does pull out. Or you can sleep in my bed and I can sleep on the pull out. Either way. I just thought you might not want to be alone tonight.”

“You…” Bucky stutters, and it cracks Steve around the edges, because Bucky never stuttered. Bucky was confident and swaggered a little when he walked, but sometimes their own specific types of brashness matched. “You want me to stay here?”

“It’s not a question,” Steve says, sitting down on his set of couch cushions, watching Bucky tentatively do the same. “This is your home now, if you want it to be.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” Bucky insists, clearly trying to make sure Steve knows what he’s getting into. “I don’t…I don’t remember everything yet. I’m unstable, I’m… I’ve had nightmares lately, waking up with who you say I am and who they said I was battling, trying to rip me apart… I…”

Steve covers Bucky’s hands again, and this time, Bucky doesn’t pull away, trying with all his might to trust his friend.

“We will figure it out together,” Steve says, looking Bucky straight in the eye. “As you said, I don’t back down from a fight.”

Bucky’s lips form a shaky smile, and he lays down across the couch cushions, pulling the blankets over himself as if he fears he might never be warm again. Steve flicks off the light, and puts his hands under his head, just able to make out Bucky’s form next him through the outline of the moonlight.  It’s quiet between them for a moment until much to Steve’s surprise, Bucky speaks again.

“Is my sister still alive?” Bucky asks. “I’ve just…I had a little sister, didn’t I?”

“Yes to both,” Steve says.

“She’s old now.”

“Yes,” Steve repeats. “I went to see her. Becca.”

“I’m not ready to see her,” Bucky answers, fear in his voice again. “It took everything I had to come see you, I…”

“It’s okay Buck,” Steve replies, knowing he’ll be repeating these words time and again, as many times as he needs to. Forever, is necessary. “We can go see her when you’re ready. It took me a long while before I could go see Peggy. She’s alive, still. She has memory problems though. Alzheimer’s. Sometimes she remembers, sometimes she doesn’t.”

“Sounds a little bit like me,” Bucky answers. “Peggy,” he continues, testing the name. "The dame in the red dress. Our superior. She was something else. And she fancied you.” Bucky pauses for a minute, then continues. “You know you have a whole world here, right? From what I read about you since you came out of the ice. A whole superhero team.”

_Did you do anything fun Saturday night?_

_Well, all the guys in my barbershop quartet are dead, so._

_Trying to get me back in the world?_

_Trying to save it._

“I know.”

For the first time since entering his apartment, Steve can’t quite make himself complete his thought, tears beading along his eyelashes and he hope Bucky can’t see them in the dark, because Bucky needs him, Bucky’s been through something the word hell can’t even begin to encompass and how did he end up here out of his time and out of the world he knew with his best friend he thought dead mind wiped and tortured beside him? How does he tell Bucky that yes, he has a world, but the people in that world have their own private worlds, worlds that aren’t long past. Other friends and family and significant others to return to. Bucky is the only part of his old personal world that still exists, apart from Peggy, who is not long for the world, he knows. And in the quiet moments, in the many, many quiet moments, no matter how well he’s adapted to the modern world, he feels a crushing, breath stealing longing for his own. Not even for the time itself, there’s been so much progress since then, but for the people he lost all at once.

After a beat, he feels Bucky’s hand reach over for his, squeezing it gently before pulling away, a silent moment of understanding everything within Steve, even if a few months ago he couldn’t remember Steve himself.

“I’m so sorry Buck,” Steve says, voice tremulous. “I’m…”

“Don’t you dare,” Bucky says, a bite in his voice. “I may not remember everything, but I know me falling from that train wasn’t your fault. Me getting captured and experimented on wasn’t your fault. That exhibit I saw, it said you went thirty miles behind Nazi lines and saved a thousand men. Saved me.”

“I couldn’t save you from the worst thing to ever happen to you,” Steve says, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop them. “Even when I had nothing I had you, and I still couldn’t save you.”

“You couldn’t save me from everything,” Bucky says, his own voice straining. “But you’ve saved me now, made me remember. Now I have nothing, but I still have you. And that’s worth everything. What goes around, you know?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, unable to articulate anything else, but all the meaning is wrapped up in that one word.

“Night, Steve,” Bucky says, a yawn punctuating his words.

“Night, Buck,” Steve answers, a rush of strange and sudden joy flooding through him, because this moment is never one he expected to experience again after he was forced to watch Bucky fall from the train.

Silence falls again, and Steve sees Bucky is asleep, his own eyes growing heavy. He texts his friends, lets them know Bucky is with him and he’ll speak with them more tomorrow. A memory overtakes his mind, and he smiles again, hearing Bucky’s voice.

_Sometimes I think if you didn’t have me, there wouldn’t be a single person in the world who really understood you._

Finally Steve closes his eyes, arm splayed out so that his fingertips brush Bucky’s, his lost friend who is an irreplaceable part of him.

Till the end of the line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
